The Blog of David Homer

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Today’s special guest is Nicole Walters of NicoleWalters.tv, who’s talking about the funnel after the funnel, what that is, and why it’s so critical to her mindset and success. We’ll also be talking about how she quit her job . . . in front of a live audience! Since then, she’s built a seven-figure business while being an amazing mother too. She’s here to talk about all that and more, today on The Smart Passive Income Podcast.

There are things that we purposefully focus on that help us grow and scale our businesses. For Nicole it’s her incredible community. We’d spoken at an event together—Business Boutique with Christy Wright, in Nashville—and after the event I swear we didn’t go ten feet without someone stopping Nicole to ask for a selfie or an autograph.

The value Nicole provides for her community is incredible and her journey is inspiring. From a high-level corporate career, to the world of online business and a buzzing community, her story is unique, and what she’s built because of those experiences is truly special. She’s learned some essential lessons, strategies, and techniques along the way, and she’s here today to share all of that with you!

Now you will create a quick plugin that will add the necessary code to the head section of your site.

At this point I will insert a 4 minute video that will cover exactly how to get started creating a WordPress plugin.

Now, with Pluginception setup:

From the WordPress Dashboard, click Plugins, then Create a New Plugin.

Give the plugin a name such as My Favicons Placement Plugin.

Click the Create a Blank Plugin button.

Now, add the code into your plugin that you see in the video, or below these steps if you are following along within the written tutorial. The use of singular quotes vs. double quotes within the function is important, since the Favicon code contains double quotes.

Get the Favicon code that was generated for you in earlier steps.

Replace where it says YOUR FAVICON CODE with the code copied in the previous step.

Click the Update File button.

To test, view the web site, right-click and ‘View Source’ and search for the code to make sure it shows up. Plus, you can look for your Favicon in the open Tab.

Monday, February 12, 2018

Wow, 2018. It’s safe to say that this year is a big year for me. October marks the ten-year anniversary of starting my business, and on June 17th it’ll be ten years since I was laid off (not that I’m keeping track or anything!). In fact, there’s something special that’s going to be happening on June 17th, 2018—but I’ll save that for later.

But . . . ten years. What a journey it’s been! Over that time, I’ve moved from focusing mainly on my own business to becoming a coach and teacher for others getting started in online entrepreneurship. I’ve had the opportunity to guide so many smart, committed people starting their own businesses from scratch. I’ve also seen several of my friends go on to become very successful entrepreneurs—as well as a few who were once very successful but had to start over for some reason and rebuild their success.

Through all of these examples, I’ve learned just how important mindset is for the success of an entrepreneur. In fact, I’d say it’s probably the most important thing. You can have the best products, you can have all the right marketing strategies, you can have the right customers . . . but if you don’t have the right mindset, none of that stuff matters.

In this post I want to share five essential truths that I’ve learned about mindset over the course of the last almost-decade of being an entrepreneur. Three of them even come with brand-new videos I recorded. Check them out as you’re reading, and subscribe to my YouTube channel to be updated whenever I release new videos.

So, here are the five biggest things I’ve learned over the past ten years about entrepreneurship and mindset. I’m excited to share them with you now. Let’s do this!

#1: You Were Meant for This

The number one thing is this: If you’re reading this right now, it means you were meant for this entrepreneurial journey. There’s a reason you’re here, why you’re doing what you’re doing. There’s a reason you’re working so hard, experimenting, doing the research, and building a business. You have a deep and powerful drive for it—and if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be here. Maybe that drive stems from being unhappy with your current job and wanting something more, whether it’s on the side or full-time. You know there’s something more out there for you.

A lot of people question themselves. They say, “Well, I don’t know if I’m cut out for this, or, “I don’t know if I was meant to do this.” But when you adopt that mindset, it keeps you from committing fully. Full commitment is what’s required. You need to have that mental commitment to going all in—not necessarily with your time, but with your attitude. If you ever question yourself, always remember why you started on this journey in the first place. What is it deep down about making this change that excites you? What are the opportunities that lie in front of you? Always remember: This is something you were meant to do.

#2: Failure Is a Part of the Process

I grew up in a household where I was trained to try and be as perfect as possible. I was near perfect through high school and even college, getting a 4.2 GPA, graduating at the top of my class, magna cum laude from UC Berkeley in architecture. I grew up in a household where I came home from school with a 94% on my math test, and I was asked, “What happened to the other 6%?” I wasn’t necessarily congratulated, although I was, but I felt like the stress was on what I had missed and not the rest of that I had gotten right. And so, I experienced one of the biggest failures in my life when I got let go.

This is sadly common. We live in a day and age where we are expected to be perfect. I recently watched a video of Neil deGrasse Tyson speaking at a college graduation, talking about how we prize knowledge over the process of learning, and memorization over ingenuity. Neil gave the example of a spelling bee. A person who spells “cat” correctly, “C-A-T,” goes on to the next round. If the next person goes up and tries to spell it “K-A-T,” it’s incorrect. It’s really close! But it’s still incorrect, and they’re out of the competition. Then, if someone else comes up and spells it “Q-Z-V,” they are equally as out as the person who spelled it “K-A-T.” Even though the “K-A-T” person was really close, much closer than the “Q-Z-V” person—and they had arguably spelled it just as correctly, if not more so (if you look at the pronunciation guide in a dictionary for the word “cat,” you’ll see “/kat/”!).

As Neil says, our society is too focused on “the right answer.” We’re too focused on the what, and not the how, the process of learning. We’re too focused on perfection rather than good enough, even though good enough is often good enough! The person who spells it “K-A-T” is going to feel like they’ve failed, and they are viewed as being on the same level of failure as somebody who got it completely wrong.

And when you’re trying to become an entrepreneur, this is something that can be really dangerous. The need to be perfect, to avoid failure, comes into conflict with what it actually takes to be successful. Because if you’re worried about perfection all the time, you’re never going to get anything done. The quest for perfection is going to delay you from doing what you need to do to actually run a business. As Seth Godin says, “Just ship.”

In entrepreneurship and in life, we’re sometimes afraid of failing and making mistakes because we feel like those mistakes will ruin us. The thought of that big fat red “F” marker on the paper scares a lot of people. So we study harder, and try to avoid failure as much as possible. But when you’re an entrepreneur, failing is good! The faster you fail, the better you can learn. This is why in my book Will It Fly? failing is a crucial part of validating your business idea: Seeking out conversations in which people can poke holes in your business model is the part of the process. Pre-selling your items so that when you don’t sell anything, you can go back to the people who said they were interested but didn’t buy to learn what you need to do differently.

So remember, there are no overnight successes, and you might have to fail a lot before you succeed. When you realize that even some of the most successful people out there didn’t do it overnight, and often faced tons of rejection, you learn to appreciate the hard work, patience, and persistence needed to make it as an entrepreneur. If you let failures stop you, you’re going to let a lot of people down, including yourself and the people you could be serving.

In case you’re still scared of failure, I wanted to share this next video, “9 Successful People Who Were REJECTED 138 Times.” It features several people you might recognize who failed a lot but forged ahead and found success over time. I won’t give them away right away, so try to play along and guess each person before I reveal them. There are some big names on this list, and I think you’ll be pretty surprised when you learn what they had to go through before they became successful.

#3: It’s Never Too Late to Begin

With my courses now, especially Smart From Scratch, I get a lot of messages from new entrepreneurs who are feeling disillusioned. They’ve done their research, and they’ve seen how much competition is out there for their business idea—and they think this is a bad thing. They feel like they’re too late to the game. But there’s actually a big advantage in being late! When you do your research, you can find the holes in the market, see what your potential competitors are not doing well, and start to carve out your own unique positioning. You also know that because of the simple fact that there is competition out there, there’s a market out there for the kind of business you want to start. This gives you a chance to listen to the market and create something different and better.

Also, when you start out small, you have the ability to more easily connect with people, to have close and meaningful interactions that help you cultivate raving fans much more quickly. You can create a more personal connection with your customers, something that’s harder for larger companies to do.

Finally, some people consider themselves too old to start a business—but that’s simply not true!

I address this fear, that it’s too late to get started, in the next video, “I’m TOO OLD to Start a Business…” If you ever think it’s too late to begin starting a business, whether because of your age or because of competition, what I share in this video will show you the real truth behind this faulty assumption. I talk about Richard, who at the age of 52 told me he felt like he was too old to start a business. I helped Richard break down that myth and realize why you’re truly never too old to get started at anything.

So stop making age or timing an excuse. Maybe you wish you’d started earlier, but that’s just fear of missing out, and it’s something we all deal with from to time.

#4: It’s All in Your Head

When you start off on an entrepreneurial path, you encounter things that you just haven’t experienced before. And you start to do what I call “weird entrepreneur math.” We start to put more importance on some numbers and not others, even when it doesn’t make sense to. What am I talking about? I’ll explain everything in the next video, where I talk about some of the numbers that trip up entrepreneurs who are starting out. I’ll tell you which numbers you should ignore, and which ones you should pay attention to if you want to be successful.

#5 You Can’t Do This Alone

Entrepreneurship can be very lonely. That’s why it’s really important to connect with the right people, build the right relationships that will sustain you.

I love to meet people, and I love to help other entrepreneurs meet each other. For all of my courses, I hold meetups for my students, and I encourage them to set up their own private meetups, too. I also love meeting people at conferences. I think conferences are one of the best ways to connect with awesome people who are on a similar path to you. Even if you’ve never been to a conference, I encourage you to go out there and find one this year that fits you and your business. The connections you make at these events can be a game-changer.

As a matter of fact, I’ll be speaking at a number of events this year, and I’d love to meet you if you can make it to any of them! Here are some of the highlights on my schedule:

Wednesday, February 7, 2018

Last year I built three online courses—premium courses that people paid for—as well as a fourth free course. They’ve been working like gangbusters: In 2017 I earned $1 million in revenue from online courses alone. Online courses have been an incredible experience for me, and today I’m sharing the ten steps you can take to create life-changing online courses for your audience.

Why are online courses so great? Why wouldn’t you do an online course? Does it make sense to do an online course? Does it best serve your audience? Today we’re going to get into all of these questions and a whole lot more. (I hope you brought a notebook!)

I hesitated about building an online course for so long because, well, I was too afraid to sell to my audience. The big realization for me? You can sell and serve at the same time. And, I realized that I wouldn’t be taking away from the people in my audience who are more keen on my free, lower-level material. It made me realize that I could serve even more people through courses, especially people who were willing to invest in taking their businesses to the next level.

If you’ve ever considered starting an online course, this is a great place to start, and even if you have a couple of courses up online already, this episode will boost your strategy. I’m going to go deep into my personal experiences with courses so that you can take your business to the next level. Let’s get started!

I want to thank David Siteman Garland for all the help he’s given me in getting my courses up and running. And I’m excited to announce that we’re doing two co-hosted webinars on March 15 and 16, where we’re going to teach you even more information about setting up your online course and a lot of the finer details related to that. SPI students that have gone through this webinar have come out with amazing results. If you want to register check out SmartPassiveIncome.com/onlinecourses.

Wednesday, January 31, 2018

As outlined in my book, Will It Fly?, validation is key, and with me today are two guests who have used that strategy to build an incredible business: Mark Wills and Roman Rosario of Loan Signing System. [Full Disclosure: As an affiliate, I receive compensation if you purchase through this link.] What started as a simple idea turned into a robust online business that’s changed the lives of tons of people, earning Mark and Roman over $30K per month as a result. This episode is a lot of fun, loaded with tips and strategies for online courses, validation, and building an online business organically.

How Mark and I connected is kind of a funny story—Mark was actually the agent who oversaw me signing documents for our first rental property. Through that meeting we discovered that we have a love of building online courses. I have both Mark and his business partner Roman on the episode today, and they’re going to be sharing the story behind how they started their online business, as well as YouTube and video-related tactics, strategies related to testimonials, and how the methods in my book Will It Fly? helped them on their way to success.

There’s a ton of great information here. It doesn’t matter what kind of business you’re in or where in the entrepreneurial journey you are, this is going to be super helpful, and a lot of fun. Stay tuned!

Next week, in Episode 304, I’m breaking down all it might take to build an online course. I’m giving you everything you might need to consider and have in place so that you really crush it when you put it out there. I’m just going to brain dump everything I know for you, so don’t miss it!

In just a few days, I am going to start posting three to five videos a week on my YouTube channel! With my video recording studio all set up, and my trusty videographer Caleb, I am equipped and excited to bring you value in new ways, on a channel I haven’t focused on at all.

Subscribe here if you haven’t yet (or read on to find out exactly why you should subscribe!).

SPI on YouTube—A Little History

To effectively talk about the future of my YouTube channel, we first have to go back in time to when I started my YouTube channel in 2009. The reason I started the channel is because some of the content I was creating warranted being taught via video. It was visual, so it made sense.

Well, it did until I realized I was deathly afraid to be on camera. Some of my first videos published on YouTube are composed of me using a screen share tool to record what was on my screen so that I could avoid putting my face on camera altogether. I was terrified.

Over the years I’ve become more comfortable with being on camera, obviously. That’s how it is for any content medium when you’re first starting out. You’re getting a feel for it. You’re trying things out. You’re getting used to hearing your own voice.

But you also don’t need to always have your face on camera when you’re creating videos of value. Some of my initial videos have performed very well, despite their lower quality in terms of production. The value was there, and I didn’t have to show my face (woohoo!).

The key is that you don’t have to be perfect from the start. No one is perfect. There is no such thing. Sometimes you just need to start somewhere.

You need to start with value.

A few of my early videos I want to share aren’t great in terms of quality, but they’ve provided value to my audience over the years. These are:

Passive Income Streams 101

In this video, created in October 2009, I share the business model I used to create multiple passive income streams. If you listen to my voice, you’ll notice a lot has changed!

How to Build a Blog in Less Than 4 Minutes and Write Your First Blog Post

With a timer counting down, I showed my audience how to build a blog in less than four minutes. A catchy title and a special Bluehost affiliate discount made this video very popular, and has helped me earn millions in Bluehost affiliate income over the past nine years.

The Over-the-Top Office of a 6 Figure Work-at-Home Blogger

The first time I really put my face on camera was in this video. My audience got to meet Gizmo, my dog, and I shared a behind-the-scenes look at my tiny at-home office.

As you can tell, the videos aren’t great quality, but they still get views to this day, nearly ten years later—which is so awesome.

Back then, my YouTube channel mostly featured tutorials and walkthroughs of my processes.

When I became a little more comfortable, I started to put my face on camera, which opened up more opportunities to experiment and try different things on YouTube, such as adding text on top of the video, and that sort of thing.

And then in 2011, I slowed down on creating videos. That’s when the Smart Passive Income podcast and blog really started to take off, and so I shifted my focus to those two platforms. I started to publish podcast episodes every other week, which quickly changed to every week. I didn’t feel like there was a need to create videos. And yet, despite that, the video channel slowly but steadily grew.

A few years later, as I headed into 2014, I decided to revitalize my YouTube channel. At that point, I had around 35,000 subscribers—all of whom had found my channel organically. I had no real structure or strategy for my channel, so I worked with my videographer, Caleb, for an entire year to create what we eventually called SPI TV. We experimented with publishing one video per week. We analyzed how each of the videos performed. We looked at the video topic, number of comments, and shares. We tried videos where I answered questions from viewers. We did all sorts of things.

And, in the end, I think we experimented our way into some pretty neat and useful videos, including:

That last one, the public speaking video, was filmed in secret in a closed room at an event. We weren’t even supposed to be in the room, but it had a stage and I wanted to use it to record the video and to, show viewers how to effectively speak in public

Most fascinating, out of the fifty or so videos we created under the SPI TV label, the video that has been the most popular is . . .

After a year of producing videos for SPI TV, I was kind of burnt out. I got to a point where I was spending a lot of time and energy fishing for topic ideas. It didn’t feel as organic as it should’ve been. I eventually put aside SPI TV to focus on the AskPat Podcast.

Vlogging Adventures

Fast forward a couple of years, I took my first trip (ever!) to Europe for DNX Global in Lisbon, Portugal. That’s where I tried vlogging for the first time. I bought a new camera, a Sony RX100 Mark V, and I captured my first moments in Europe. It was fun. I wanted to try out vlogging, something I had never done, and what better place to do it than during my first European trip!

Here’s that video:

I had the camera, a mini tripod that I could set up anywhere, and I just started capturing different moments from the trip. I had so much fun with it. I created mini stories during each day I was in Lisbon. Once I published them on my YouTube channel, I started to get some great interactive feedback—with folks asking and commenting: “Pat, where have you been?” “This is amazing.” “I’d love to see more videos!”

It was reassuring to see that. I honestly didn’t know how my audience would react, but the feedback has been very positive. That sparked new life for me. Over the past couple of years, the blog, podcast, and now the online courses, too, have been working well on their own. They’re a well-oiled machine. I am still very involved in each of them, but the team and the tools we use allow for both a certain amount of automation as well as giving me a break from all the minutiae.

However, I had lost a little bit of that spark of creativity, that outlet for me to try different things and be my weird, awkward, silly me even more.

But, ever since creating the vlogs, and seeing that reaction, it’s made me want to create more and more. I’ve started experimenting with vlogs, capturing behind the scenes of events I attend. I even experimented with hiring a team to follow me around, which was an interesting experience, but not something I’d bring to AskGaryVee or Derek Halpern levels. Those guys are already doing amazing things in that world.

Video, Video, and More Video in 2018

All of this leads to where I’m at today with video, and that is a commitment to making video one of my main focuses for 2018. I think there are a lot of areas of online business that either aren’t covered well, or aren’t even covered at all. If you search for online business-related content on YouTube, you’ll find either a lot of the same old stuff, or you get really scammy or clickbait-type content.

That just makes me sick. I want to change that. I want to fill those gaps of knowledge in the area of online business. That’s why video in 2018 is so important to me. In addition to providing value for my audience, I know that focusing on my YouTube channel can provide a new source of traffic for me. I’m excited to see what optimizing my YouTube channel will bring, and how that will impact my brand. I want to continue to grow and, as always, continue to learn from my experiments so I can share that learning with you. On top of that, by focusing on video, it gives me another way to collaborate with people that I may not have connected with on other platforms.

According to Cisco, video will represent 82 percent of all IP traffic by 2021. (Source: Cisco’s VNI forecast.)

That’s huge.

It’s why, in May 2017, I leased a 900-square foot studio, and invested $35,000 to create a legitimate video recording space with multiple sets, and the equipment I need to make professional videos.

And also why my videographer, Caleb, and I have put our heads together to create a content plan for 2018. Every week, we’ll be meeting consistently to film and batch process our videos. We’re having a lot of fun with it, and I’m learning so much about the video space.

I’m learning that, in order to really grow your audience, your video content needs to be engaging. So that’s something I’ve been focused on this year. With that content, we’re also applying that to blog posts and podcast episodes too. If you’ve listened to any episodes from this year, you’ll know that there is just something a little bit different about them—more compelling, more engaging, and more educational.

I attended VidSummit this year (and I’ll be a keynote speaker at VidSummit next year!), where I met a lot of amazing people creating super engaging video content. It’s inspiring, and I’m learning a ton.

But I’ve also realized that I can bring some of my own experience and value to the YouTube community. A lot of YouTubers, although they have millions of subscribers and views on their videos, they don’t necessarily have a business. I want to help that with that. So I’ll focus on helping them build a business with the audience that they’ve built, outside of the YouTube platform, which will allow them to grow and expand in ways they might not have thought possible.

This leads us all the way back to why you should subscribe to my YouTube channel. For all the reasons mentioned above! Plus, as a bonus, I’m throwing a big contest that will give a shot at having a virtual chat with me over coffee and a spot in an upcoming video of mine!

What You Can Win

A 1-hour face-to-face Virtual Coffee Chat with me! We can chat about whatever you’d like: your business, personal life, if you are stuck on something and need help, or want to run an idea by me.

At the end of the call, you will also have the opportunity to promote anything you want (business name, social media handles, “hi, mom!”, etc.) and be featured in an upcoming YouTube video that I’ll post on the Smart Passive Income YouTube channel.

How to Enter the Contest

There are multiple ways to enter and earn entries into Pat Flynn’s 2018 YouTube Giveaway. These include:

1 entry for entering your name and email address on the Giveaway Page

3 entries each for referring a friend to enter the contest via Facebook and Twitter

5 entries for watching the full 5-minute YouTube video I link on the Giveaway Page

10 entries for subscribing to my YouTube channel

To potentially win a Virtual Coffee Chat with me and a spot in an upcoming video, enter the contest by clicking the link below:

Wednesday, January 24, 2018

In this episode you’re going to learn about the difference between coaching and teaching, what I’ve learned since investing in the art of coaching, the seven questions you need to ask when coaching, and why this is important for you and your business. Whether you’re just getting started with coaching or are looking to take it to the next level, this episode is critical listening!

Why is the difference between coaching and teaching so critical? Coaching is an exceptional way to help people develop skills and abilities and boost performance. There’s crossover of course, but the big difference is that when you’re teaching, the focus is on you and your knowledge. Coaching is about the individual; it’s two-way, collaborative communication. And it’s very, very personal (that’s why coaches can charge more).

When it comes to your business’ content, you have a lot of options. You can offer content in a somewhat passive way through courses or free material, but coaching is very active. And some people really need that coaching. I’ve found it wonderfully rewarding to coach people one on one, which is part of why I reformatted my podcast, AskPat, to be a one-on-one coaching call. It’s been a real game-changer for me, and I know it can be for you too, so listen carefully as we dive into the world of coaching!

In this episode, I’m also talking about the brand-new SPI Accelerator Program and what that is. In brief, it’s a higher-level, premium coaching program for those who are a little further along with their online business journey and earning over $100k. Tune in for more details!

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About Me

My name is David, I am a father of 2 kids. I enjoy spending time with my kids and my lovely wife. We live in beautiful Salt Lake City! I am interested in networking with other professionals in the area.